Hoist the Black Flag
by Alowl
Summary: The connection between Damien and the Hunter flows both ways.  And what are the dreams of a man long since lost to damnation? Warning: Hints of DamienGerald.


The characters, world, and mechanisms of reality defined below are not my property. They belong to Ms. Friedman, whose talents in this area far outstrip my own. Still, the words below are mine – and I must earnestly implore you not to poach on my property. Stealing's wrong, folks – let it be.

Hoist the Black Flag

_Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. - H. L. Mencken_

Damien dreamed.

A channel cuts both ways, no matter how much any one man might wish it otherwise. It was an inescapable truth, one that Damien was slowly coming to dread with a passion he'd never imagined himself capable of. The nightmares that the Hunter forced upon him were one thing – their appearances, at least, were somewhat predictable, vanishing with the bright light of dawn. Despite his distaste towards the matter in general, he understood the necessity; he'd volunteered for it after all, hadn't he?

But these dreams – these _other_ dreams – he could never breathe a word of. To do so would be a betrayal greater than anything he could possibly imagine.

During the forging of the bond that linked him inextricably to his nemesis, more than the lifeblood of his veins had been spilled. He'd felt every touch of that chill, merciless mind as it flowed through the natural boundaries erected about his soul. While they might normally have held firm against an invading influence of any kind, or at least provided a momentary obstacle – this was the Hunter, after all – they had yielded without a murmur to that burningcold sense of _presence_ that swiftly enveloped the core of his self.

Possibly because some level of his being didn't recognize the invading force as a foreign intruder. A connection had been made in that one blinding moment of shock when he'd felt Tarrant's chill lips upon his flesh and his blood ran free. It scared him in a manner he couldn't articulate – that part of him accepted the Hunter's presence on a level that went beyond any form of intimacy that the mortal plane could hope to offer. That some part of him was helpless to do anything but welcome the fallen Prophet as a second self, another skin.

There was no barrier. What fortifications could a soul hold against its own?

Tarrant probably knew his fear, damn the man. Probably fed well upon it. Either way, it was a topic he'd never broached with the priest, and for that, at least, Damien was grateful.

He endured the nightmares that the Hunter set to harass him with ill grace. The others…

He didn't even think Tarrant was aware of their presence. But he knew, to the core of his soul, that they were not a subject he would ever, _ever_ voice around the other man. The reaction that its discussion would engender – would not be pleasant. He didn't need a Divining to inform him of that fact.

Tarrant used the connection that bound them to manipulate his dreams, and harvested the fear his creations aroused through the same pathway of least resistance. Dreams, because the channel wasn't strong enough to impinge upon Damien's will when he was fully alert. His conscious mind acted as shield and sword, blocking the trickle of fae that sped joyfully in response to Tarrant's commands. Tarrant might have been able to break through the impediment of his conscious effort, but such an attack was unlikely. The Hunter was fastidious about many things. His appearance, his reputation – and also his privacy. He seemed, in some small manner, to respect Damien's need for the same, ignoring the possibilities that their bond presented in favor of dismissing the very fact of its existence whenever possible. For once, the priest was quite happy to follow the other man's lead.

But a channel flows both ways. And even the Hunter needed to sleep upon occasion.

It wasn't exactly sleep. But no man can go without true rest for any period of time without going insane. Gerald Tarrant was many things – monster, demon, and sadistic abomination – but insanity was not a trait he would tolerate in himself, scourging out weakness with the same ruthless abandon he displayed in securing his own continued existence on this plane. Whatever the truth of the matter, he slept, rarely, in unpredictable times and locations.

And he dreamed.

Damien knew what to expect from nightmares. Knew the horror that lay in store as his worst fears – connections and scenarios that he didn't even allow himself to think of in his waking hours – paraded before his closed eyes in a foul mockery of his own psyche. He knew the terror that such dreams would engender, leading him to wake in the night with a scream upon his lips as he cursed Tarrant's name with all the passion his turbulent life dared afford him. But the _other_ dreams…

Darkness beyond measure as the Hunter's unconscious mind followed the blood-born pattern carved into the very nature of the fae, binding them with insubstantial shackles that would never, could never, be broken. Like water flowing downhill, the fae sought the path of least resistance, linking the unconscious minds of those it bound.

And Damien dreamed.

_Darkness beyond twilight, beyond anything he had ever experienced. True Night, when the moons were absent from the sky and the purple haze of the dark fae rose up about him in sinuous ribbons, caressing his toneless skin with the promise of terrible pleasures unknown to the sunlit world. Music, delicate in its intensity, fragile in its bliss, rising up all about him – possessed of a beauty that made him wish to weep for the glory of it._

_He dreamed of the kiss of coldfire upon his skin as it weighed him, devoured him, thrusting him into a whirling maelstrom of white-blue power that forged him anew. Screaming in triumph, he took to the sky on wings the color of bleached bone, the harsh night winds cradling him in their embrace as he soared beneath the frigid light of the stars. The ultimate freedom as he conquered gravity itself, arching strong feathers as he danced to the quicksilver touch of the cold that burned ever within him._

_The Forest. _His_ Forest, magnificent and awful in its perfection. His child, in every meaning of the word. Were not his the hands that had created it, sculpted an utterly unremarkable piece of woodland into a separate world the likes of which had never before been seen upon the skin of Erna? Was it not his care that had nourished it, his efforts that bore it into the world, and his will that maintained its borders? Was he not its master, his very name a curse that sent men cringing, glancing towards the dark woods with superstitious fear? It was a fear well earned. A gateway, a transitory plane – the Forest was comparable to the Underworld of legend, where the dead walked at will beneath a sky that had never known the sun. The wolf that would devour the celestial orb howled powerlessly in the night, bound to his bidding and cringed before his footstep as he walked the length of his land and found it good. His work. His creation. And oh, so beautiful…_

_The scent of fear – the taste of it upon his tongue, its sweetness honey-sharp upon his palate, sparking a haze of barely contained desire. He breathed deeply, not out of any need for the oxygen, but for the simple pleasure the motion inspired. He knew what they saw, and he gloried in the sharp catch in this one's breath, the momentary pause of utter shock as her terror-glazed eyes spread wide in stunned surprise at the vision that stood before her. She trembled, chills born of utter fright rippling across her skin as she realized what faced her, this demon with the face of an angel, this one creature whose mere mention set her heart to racing in frantic beats almost irresistible in their rhythm. It pounded forth a staccato tempo impossible to deny, his to make or break at will - so very delicious, and he moved, unhurried, towards the woman who stood frozen in an ecstasy of tortured longing. The spark in her eyes brightened in utter terror as he stretched forth a hand, leaned forward, his breath cool against her skin. _

"_Run," he whispered in her ear, and she stared at him for a long moment, her face twisted into a dull recognition of what he offered her. A chance. Precious and perilous; and when it would be torn from her hands, it would cut just as sweetly as any sword blade. But it was a chance, and she could not turn it by - so she turned, running clumsily into the trees, entire being burning with agonized, deadly hope. He smiled then, teeth ivory-sharp against his lips, effortlessly giving chase after his chosen prey, limbs swift and tireless. He ran, and he gloried – in the moon that shone bright and clear in the dark tapestry of the night, in the harsh, frantic panting of a woman draw to the brink of madness by fear and poisonous hope – in the thrilling, torturous revelry that ran rampart throughout his being. Of a hunger soon to be stated, and the darksome triumph of the Hunt – and he saw her pause, saw her half-turn in an attempt to judge the distance, saw the realization and the horror blossom across her features as he lunged forward in one effortless, utterly inhuman motion…_

And Damien woke.

In his sleep, Damien drifted among the broken pillars and stately halls of the Hunter's being, drawn by the very presence he so abhorred.

And that was a horror beyond imagining. Tarrant had told him once that he took the form and appearance of the worst fear of any he met – in Damien's case, that of a refined, subtle evil, urbane in nature and ruthless in its efficiency. Bound together to the fulfillment of a common goal, it was a torment that Damien had no choice but to tolerate. A form that would have him question his Church–sponsored morals, picking delicate threads from the fabric of his conscious with sharp-pointed words and debates. A form that would serve to wear down his basic identity, to the point he could no longer be capable of distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil. Tempting him with the promise not of corruption, but of indifference – of freedom from the laws of man and God, the stately arrogance to turn his back upon all he believed in and forge his own path through the world.

And in dreams, he tasted the full foul beauty of that terrible concept. In his dreams, he walked in another's skin, in the form and force of one who'd spent millennia heeding no law but his own. Soulbound to a monster his entire being regarded as anathema, he spiraled into the depths of darkness which knew no name, but promised such wonderful, unbridled pleasures unknown to those who walked beneath the sun. Soul caressed and remade by the fragile, unnaturally strong currents of dark fae, he had soared the night on wings of white flame, and walked without fear through the heart of the Forest.

In his dreams, he was one with the Hunt, the bittersweet cup that drained as quickly as it was replenished. And what was there to fear? The night was his own, and he had Hunted the night through the breadth and depth of the lands, until it bowed its head before him in submission and spread its secrets before his refined hands. His to pick and discard at will - in his dreams, he _was_ the Hunter, and Erna itself shuddered at his footfall.

He should be frightened. He should be repulsed beyond all measure. He shouldn't enjoy the dreams quite as much as he did, seizing onto this one fragile scrap of beauty, of pleasure, in the midst of the living nightmare that now composed his waking hours. He still found himself trembling when he awoke, but not from fear – rather, from the terrible disappointment that spiraled throughout his being, sick from the loss of a world he had no skill with which to view.

It frightened him. Far more then any nightmare that Tarrant might conjure. Nightmares he knew how to deal with - they vanished in the light of day, the sun's kiss scouring them from skin and sight. Not so for the shadows that dwelt within, whetted and tested against an ever-cascading haze of images. He could feel its presence – a nameless bit of darkness in his soul, strengthened and fed by the faeborn currents that compelled him to share the dreams of demons. It scared him beyond description, and yet there was one more fact that bid it all pale in comparison, that set him praying in the midst of the night with an intensity that knew no bounds as he poured forth his heart and soul in a desperate appeal to his God. His greatest fears were embodied in that one, fragile moment of dread. The Hunter had never supped on it, and Damien prayed he never would.

Because for a single, terrifying moment when he woke, he wanted nothing so much as to drink deeply of all the corruption that Tarrant embodied and fall into the soft, nurturing darkness that comprised the man. He wanted.

And he knew it never could be.


End file.
